If your travels take you to Annapolis for Commissioning Week at the Naval Academy, for the December Parade of Lights, or simply to nose around the city’s walkable historic district, there’s rest for the weary explorer at the William Page Inn. Built in 1908, this brown-shingle Victorian is a youngster by Annapolis standards, but one with an accommodating style. Its wraparound porch offers deep Adirondack chairs, and the boxwood in the William Paca House gardens perfumes the air. Somewhere over the high white wall at the end of Martin Street you might hear Naval Academy “middies” drilling, and four blocks away, at eateries around City Dock, crabs are being devoured, but on the William Page porch such distractions seem light-years away.
The genial innkeeper is Rob Zuchelli, a designer of theatrical lighting. He took very early retirement to refurbish the inn, which had served as the First Ward Democratic Clubhouse for 50 years. He aired out the smoke-filled rooms; stripped 11 coats of paint from the massive staircase, to reveal oak, mahogany, and cherry wood; and filled the inn with Queen Anne and Chippendale repro-ductions. He also turned the third floor into one smashing suite, with a sleigh bed, skylight, window seats, and balloon shades that lift to reveal views of the Annapolis rooftops. Guests might take the presence of a whirlpool bath in the suite in stride, but they are likely to be surprised by the one attached to the lit-tle blue room on the second floor.
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